Category Archives: Music

Gary Myrick’s Waltz of the Scarecrow King

Gary Myrick, a Texan who has been living in Southern California for many years, has been making music for a long time. He was in his first band at the age of 18, and made his first album in 1980. … Continue reading

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Little Pink’s Cul-de-Sac Cowgirl

Little Pink is yet another band out of the Washington, D.C., alternative country scene, and my favorite so far. Little Pink — basically singer-songwriter Mary Battiata and a somewhat shifting cast of backup musicians — had the most intriguing track … Continue reading

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Darryl Purpose’s A Crooked Line

Darryl Purpose is the best kind of singer-songwriter: one who has lived a lot of life before he started writing songs about it. On A Crooked Line, his fourth CD, he sings his songs of America and Americans, the way … Continue reading

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Honky Tonk Confidential’s Your Trailer or Mine

Honky Tonk Confidential is Washington, D.C.’s answer to the Austin Lounge Lizards. This five-piece combo draws on various forms of country music to make erudite, humorous musical commentary on modern American life, both inside and outside the Beltway. Your Trailer … Continue reading

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Jon Dee Graham’s Hooray for the Moon

Jon Dee Graham has been making music since he was a teenager in Texas in the 1970s, but he’s best known as guitarist for Austin’s proto-country-punk band the True Believers in the mid-80s. Hooray for the Moon, his third recording … Continue reading

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James Jewell and Shew’s Wasted, and Instruments and Controls

James Jewell read my reviews of Adams Hotel Road and Idiots by his fellow Pennsylvanians Frog Holler, and wrote to ask me if he could send me his CDs. I said yes, and he did, and I’m glad. Jewell, who … Continue reading

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Hot Rize’s So Long of a Journey and James King’s Thirty Years of Farming

Here are two discs from very different places on the spectrum of contemporary bluegrass music. Hot Rize, based in Boulder, Colorado, was an innovative band capable of playing straight bluegrass with the best of the traditional bands, as well as … Continue reading

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Nanci Griffith’s There’s a Light Beyond These Woods, Poet in My Window and Once in a Very Blue Moon

Nanci Griffith is one of the most successful female singer-songwriters to emerge from Texas in the past 20 years. She has had a handful of mainstream country hits and has had her songs covered by country stars, but mostly she … Continue reading

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John Hiatt and The Goners, McDonald Theater, Eugene, Oregon – December 9, 2001

Less than a month after Ken Kesey’s funeral was held in the historic McDonald Theater (owned by Kesey’s family), John Hiatt held court there before a full house eager for his signature brand of soulful, bluesy roots rock. The fans, … Continue reading

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Boozoo Chavis’s Down Home on Dog Hill

Boozoo Chavis of Lake Charles, Louisiana, was one of the pioneers and living masters of zydeco music. He died in May 2001 at the age of 70, only weeks after laying down the tracks for Down Home on Dog Hill. … Continue reading

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